


Bring It On Home

by interabang



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interabang/pseuds/interabang
Summary: Gamora reflects on her 'unspoken thing' with Peter, before and after he calls it that.





	1. A-Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NRGburst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/gifts).



> Many thanks to [HungryHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HungryHufflepuff) and [calydon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calydon/pseuds/calydon) for your advice on this, and to [Sev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevlinRipley/pseuds/SevlinRipley) for your cheerleading! You all rock.
> 
> To [NRGburst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/pseuds/NRGburst): I was super thrilled to write for you, especially once I saw that you requested one of my favorite pairings! I absolutely loved your prompt for them,and hope I did them justice.

SIghing at the meager list of job offers, Gamora turns off the large holoscreen in the _Milano’s_ communal area when her ears pick up the sound of the docking bay doors opening. Gradually, the acrid combination of liquor, smoke, and cologne wafts throughout the ship, preceding Peter’s return. 

Gamora wrinkles her nose as he stumbles to the common area, his hair unkempt and cheeks flushed. He weaves to one side, then manages to right himself before falling flat on his face.

“Hey,” he drawls, attempting to wave at her with one hand, as his free one clutches a worn piece of paper. “Didn’t think you’d stay up to wait.”

She doesn’t hide her disgust as he slowly makes his way toward the chair beside her, dropping onto it like a sack of roots. Shushing him, she scoots her chair away from his. “Where’s Rocket and Drax?”

Pushing his mop of hair away from his forehead, Peter shrugs. “Still back at the bar. Y’know, for such a small dude, he damn sure can hold his own. Betcha he outlasts Drax.”

“The highest honor one could ever achieve.”

“I know, right?”

“Shh,” she says again, reaching over to nudge him, and he sways a bit in slow motion before holding himself upright. “Try not to wake Groot. And don’t you dare throw up on him, either.”

Peter’s eyes, previously at half-mast, open all the way as he takes in the sight of Groot placed at the center of the table. Though he’s still rooted in his pot, he’s burrowed himself at an angle against a balled up shirt Gamora had placed next to him.

“Oh, right,” Peter says, dropping his voice to a whisper. He gently lays down the piece of paper he’d been clutching, and leans across the table to unroll one of the shirt’s sleeves, peering at it.

“Hey... S’my shirt!” he hisses.

“Well, you leave plenty of them lying around,” Gamora whispers back with a shrug. “At least one of them should be put to good use. He likes the way it smells, for some strange reason.”

She doesn’t know why she adds the barb; she herself has no complaints for Peter’s scent, so long as he’s sober and clean.

It’s probably just reflex, at this point.

But Peter’s not responding, or maybe he didn’t hear her at all. He’s solely focused on rolling the sleeve back into the rest of the bundled shirt, sticking out his tongue in concentration.

She’s about to stand up and bid him good night – or, technically, morning – when her eyes fall on the piece of paper he’d laid on the table. Before even pausing to think about it, she picks it up. “What is this?”

It’s actually a picture, bearing the face of a Terran who looked older, and not dissimilar to Peter.

With his sleeve rolled back in place, Peter switches his attention to  removing his jacket, but he’s so caught up in trying to do it quietly that she has to repeat her question. “That? Oh, just somethin’ I pull out from time to time. Keeps me sorta grounded, I guess.”

“Do you know him?”

Peter hesitates. 

The picture must be a very personal belonging of Peter’s, because he _rarely_ hesitates – especially when it involved talking.

“I wish I did,” he says, not in a whisper, but in a tone so low Gamora scoots her chair closer to his. “He was... Nah, y’know what? It’s dumb.” His small jacket finally rests against the back of his chair, albeit at an awkward angle. He reaches out to tug lightly on the top edge of the picture, and Gamora lets go.

“Since we’ve met, there are countless things you’ve said and done that I thought were completely idiotic,” she tells him in a hushed tone. “This isn’t one of them.”

Exhaling sharply through his nose, Peter cradles the picture in his palms, like it’s a precious jewel. He falls silent, letting the slow, comforting sounds of the ship’s humming fill the air.

Finally, after what seems like an hour of silence has passed, he tells her everything. About his dreams as a child, how desperately he’d wanted a father to play games with him and teach him life lessons. So, he created one for himself. Zardu Hasselfrau – Gamora wonders if there is a glitch in her translator when she hears this name, but she doesn’t interrupt. He is, as far as Peter believes, his father, but cruel fate keeps them separated.  Zardu’s fame and rigorous schedule to entertain Terrans had, in Peter’s fantasy, made it impossible for them to ever meet.

“But the important thing was, I had a father,” Peter concludes, his words reverberating with such clarity and deliberation, that Gamora wonders whether he’s  _talking_ himself out of inebriation. “And after a while, i guess I started to believe this is him.”

“We’ll find him, Peter,” Gamora says, her voice thick with emotion. “Your real one.”

Slowly, he turns to face her.

Slowly, Gamora looks down, and realizes that her hand is resting on his forearm.

She doesn’t immediately yank away her hand, but lowers it from him, suddenly very interested in checking whether Groot needs water.

As she leans over the table, studying his pot, then sits back down next to Peter, she knows he’s watching her, his eyes shining in a way that looks nothing like he is under the influence.

In any other situation, with any other man, she would push away from the table, hoisting up her walls. She would know better than to remain seated, leaving herself open to an attack – or a kiss.

She’s not sure which is worse.

She is sure, though, that he is about to make another attempt at the latter, like on Knowhere. He hasn’t tried it since then, but despite his previous moment of clarity, he’s more than likely still drunk, and yearning.

Gamora curses herself. She should’ve been on guard from the beginning; why else would he have returned from the bar, before the others? Why would he voluntary remove himself from the possibility of flirting with other women?

 _Probably because he got rejected by all of them, and I’m his last resort_ , she can’t help but think.

She doesn’t know why the likelihood of that almost hurts.

Briefly, as if on its own, her left hand twitches – though it doesn’t move down toward Godslayer, resting faithfully and forever at her side.

“You know,” Peter whispers, his face so close to hers and so incredibly _open_ that she can see herself reflected in his eyes, “You’re really cool, Gamora.”

Her breath catches in her throat. It’s definitely not what she expected him to say.

Maybe...

She’s sitting so close to him that her arm brushes against his.

“I am Groot.”

She exhales.

Peter turns, casting his attention upon the small potted tree as he rubs his eyes and lets out an almighty yawn.

“Hey, sorry, buddy,” Peter says, in an awkward attempt to mimic Rocket’s soothing tone. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

But Groot’s not fixating a glare upon him, like he usually does when Drax’s back is turned. Instead, he reaches out his vines toward Peter, extending his branches until they hit their limit at the end of the table.

“Whatcha want? This?” Peter holds up the picture. “Fan of the Frau too?”

Gamora nudges him with her elbow. “He wants your music.” Apparently, Peter _is_ still inebriated enough to overlook the obvious.

“Oh, yeah sure. Here ya go.” He unclips the device Gamora had seen him risk his life for.

And she realizes, fleetingly, that he had done the same for her.

It takes him several long, laborious minutes to hook up the player to the speaker system Rocket had rigged throughout the ship.

When the music finally begins to flow around them, Groot’s impatient attitude shifts to joyful as he shimmies in place.

Without looking at Peter, she can tell he very much wants to ask her to dance.

But she can also tell that he knows he’s presently useless on his feet, so he sighs wearily and scoots his chair back, folding his arms over his chest and stretching his legs out before him as he mumbles, “Wake me up when the others get back, okay?”

“You’ll probably hear them before me,” Gamora says, but before she finishes her sentence, Peter starts to snore lightly.

She vows to never tell him that she likes the way he looks when he’s asleep.

Gamora stays by his side, watching Groot shake along happily to Peter’s music.

 

 


	2. B-Side

She’s pressing the heel of her boot against the back of a felled Kree – one of Ronan’s followers – and freeing Godslayer from between his blades, when Peter asks her out on a date.

He’s standing behind her, waiting for her response, and the way his voice carries through the air, she can tell he’d deactivated his mask.

She maintains her focus on Godslayer, wiping the flat end of it on the crimson grass. A small voice whispers to her that he should know better than to assume the battle’s been won, although Rocket’s and Drax’s hearty cries from across the field signal that it is, indeed, over.

 _Probably before it had even truly begun_ , Gamora thinks with a secretly proud smile.

Perhaps it’s due to the euphoria of having won so easily, of watching her teammates – _family_ – work together so fluidly, that sparks her curiosity.

“What did you have in mind?” she asks, and she knows Peter is pumping his fist through the air, before he calms down and says, in his ‘I’m being super casual’ voice, “Oh, I thought I’d make it a surprise.”

Gamora pauses. In her past, ‘surprise’ had meant being flung into an arena, forced to battle the same girl she’d befriended in training. It meant being presented with her first assassination target when she was sixteen. It meant having to watch as Proxima and Corvus decimated an entire village. It meant maintaining the air of neutrality as the mingled screams and laughter hailed over her.

“Uh, y’know, it doesn’t _have_ to be a surprise,” Peter says after a moment, and she turns to face him, sheathing Godslayer. “I was just, I thought since we’re gonna get some downtime, maybe you’d like the element of _—”_

“ _—_ Peter,” she says, and he stops rambling. She studies his face as she walks toward him. His eyes dart a little as he shifts his weight to one foot, but as she draws closer toward him, his eyes no longer appear bloodshot from lack of sleep. Or crying.

“It’s fine,” she says, before taking one of his hands in hers. His isn’t trembling anymore. “Keep it a surprise. I’m sure it’ll be a good one.”

 

 

 

She had said it to be polite, assuming Peter’s idea of a date would be to head to the closest bar and cajole her into dancing, but even she cant’t contain her reaction when the planet Theuthida comes into view before the _Milano_ , gleaming dark blue and violet, after several dozen jumps.

“Aw, shit,” Rocket says, staring at the specks of land. “Tab’s all on you for this, Quill.”

Drax is similarly displeased about docking at a planet almost entirely made up of water, but after Peter lands on the largest island, he taps on the holoscreen, highlighting several taverns, back-alley weapons stalls, and candy shops for Mantis and Groot to peruse.

Drax immediately starts heading down the ladder, with Rocket in tow.

“Will you be joining us?” Mantis asks, leaning down to let Groot climb up on her shoulder. He’s almost doubled his size in the past few weeks, and soon he’ll be able to walk on his own. But for now, Mantis is all too happy to carry him.

“Uh – maybe tomorrow,” Peter says, glancing at Gamora as she runs calculations on Groot’s rate of growth.  
  
A smile spreads across Mantis’s face. It’s less crooked than before, but Gamora’s starting to think it wouldn’t look right if Mantis smiled as she should. “I understand,” she says, winking with exaggeration like Rocket. “You two wish to keep the ship to yourself, to engage in sexual pleasures with each _—_ ”

“ _—_   _Not_ the plan, Mantis!” Peter hastens to say, and Gamora knows the tips of his ears are going to turn red soon.

Mantis turns her large, dark eyes toward Gamora, and she shakes her head vehemently.

“It is _so_ not the plan,” Peter repeats to her, gesturing emphatically as Mantis and Groot head down the ladder.

Although Gamora maintains her neutral expression, she’s admittedly curious as to why Peter had landed here, of all places. Even Thanos hadn’t bothered to eradicate these, in his words, “backwater slugs.”

She’s glad to have finally wrenched herself free from him.

Running a hand through his hair, Peter turns off the holoscreen, unhooks his blasters, and set them on the table. Then he picks one back up and reholsters it.

“I was thinkin’ about asking you to close your eyes until we got there,” he says, thankfully keeping her from sinking into unpleasant thoughts about Thanos, “but then I thought, not happening.”

“You were right,” Gamora said, a small smile beginning to start at the corner of her mouth.

 

 

 

With Godslayer still on her hip, she enters one of the thousand establishments nestled against the docks. It is, as she had already surmised as she and Peter left the parked _Milano_ , just one of the many businesses offering aquatic ships for rent in the vast, open seas.

The owner, a seven-foot-tall lizard standing on two legs, looks almost bored as she passes several forms for Peter to sign. He somehow manages to haggle a discount out of the trip, and the owner pointedly ignores the Guardians’ weapons as she waves them off with a flourish.

Their sleek, streamlined vessel is almost completely made out of glass. It’s half the size of the _Milano_ – and, Gamora notes, not as cramped, yet comforting – but it boasts a dashboard-mounted electronic encyclopedia of all the aquatic life forms, as well as a dining area and sleeping quarters.

Peter hastily steps out of the bedroom area after pressing a button and causing the compartment’s glass to turn opaque.

He settles with her on the single bench in the cockpit, enough room between them not to feel pressed too close together, and smoothly guides the small underwater ship away from the pier.

Peter taps his fingers against his legs as he steers with his other hand. He keeps glancing at Gamora, out of the corner of his eye.

“Why is it me, Peter?” she asks.

He freezes.

The vessel nearly slams to a halt in the water, prompting a school of glittering fish smaller than Groot’s fist to split into two groups, one going over and one diving under the glass ship and then reuniting on the other side.

“It’s just...” Gamora starts, looking down at her hands as he starts moving the ship forward again. She takes a moment to collect the right words, and says, “I don’t understand why you like me so much. You know about my past. You know I’ve taken innocent lives. And I’m not exactly the _easiest_ person to get along with.” She pauses, then adds, “Just ask Nebula.”

Beside her, Peter snorts. Behind him, a bright yellow fish puffs up into a ball, almost the size of Drax, then it deflates out of sight, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake.

“I thought you’d be satisfied if you continued to spend your life with a different woman each night,” she continues, “but it’s been months since we met, and we haven’t even...” Her face grows very hot, very suddenly, despite the internal cool temperature of the ship. “So, why _me_?”

Peter sets the vessel on autopilot, then pulls out his small music player, the one Yondu had gifted to him. He turns it over in his hands, running his thumbs across the buttons, but refrains from playing a song.

Then, as he shifts his gaze from the player to Gamora, he says, “’Cause aside from my mom, you’re the most amazing woman in the universe.”

Out of the corner of Gamora’s eye, a twenty foot long black eel with grey stripes on its tail nudges the side of her ship and then peels off like a shot, baring its teeth.

“Well,” she says, “this _is_ a surprise.”

“I mean, look how far you got yourself. You broke away from Thanos. You risked your life to save an entire planet.”

“So did you.”

He runs a hand through his curls, looking as though he wants to puff out his chest and agree.

But he resets his expression to a surprisingly sober one, lowering his hand from his head. “I know, but it’s not just that. You turned everything around for yourself, and I bet it wasn’t easy, but you did it. And I never would’ve thought this when I first met you, but it’s really easy to talk to you. And, like, I don’t think anyone else puts up with me as much as you do.”

The ship rises a bit, buoyed by a burst of bubbles that erupt from the ocean floor.

“I don’t put up with you,” she says, softly. “If I felt like I was, I would’ve been long gone.”

“And that’s another thing; you’re just so... unapologetically  _you_. You don’t take anything from anyone, which is both supremely badass and hot at the same time. And I mean, God, I never saw myself spending more than a day with just one woman, and, well... Here we are.”

Peter spread his hands out toward the vessel’s front window as he parks the vessel, and, as if on cue, an enormous, mammalian creature floats into view. The behemoth itself is otherwise nondescript, its form oblong and its coloring a dull, muted grey. Gamora had seen a similar creature called a whale, in a Terran book Peter found a month ago. She’s seen many forms of this very creature in dozens of seas on dozens of other planets.

With this one, though, it’s the assortment of anemones and coral attached to its back that seizes her attention. The buds burst open in unison, displaying an electric spectrum of hues Gamora had only seen in distant memories.

Maroon, indigo, ombre, as well as iuztos and wruox.

“ _Cobromnil_ ,” she whispers, and Peter cocks his head to the side, his translator unable to decipher the word. She throws out her hand, gripping his.

She doesn’t speak right away. Not for a few long, breathtaking minutes as they watch the flowering organisms rhythmically sway and shift, open and close.

Peter waits.

When she finds her voice again, it’s thick with emotion. “We used that word for the phenomenon of the anemones, rather than for the name of the creature.”

Her vision blurs, blending the colors together.

She never thought she’d see them again.

Peter sits beside her in silence.

“My mother told me our descendants had traded several of our animal species with other planets, in order to expand their knowledge of biological life, but I never believed...” She turns toward Peter as the long array of flowers continue expanding and retracting, as if taking deep, satisfying breaths. “How did you know this was here?”

“Uh, I didn’t,” he says, looking just as stunned as she is, “but I had a feeling.”

When he connects his new music player to the control panel’s system, he falls silent again, watching Gamora as she watches the flowers, tears she had long ago thought she’d never shed sliding down her cheeks. He hums along with the tune, singing aloud a few phrases, and Gamora lets the music engulf her as the parade of colors slip out of sight.

She leans her head on Peter’s shoulder, at a complete loss for words.

When he tentatively puts his arm around her shoulder, she does not tense up or move away.

But she doesn’t kiss him, either.

Not even when night falls, and they prepare a meal in the tiny kitchen midway through the vessel.

Not even the next morning, as she wakes in the vessel’s bed at the back of the ship, with the opacity activated. She’s still clothed, and so is Peter. And, just like she had done for the past few weeks, her arms are wrapped around him from behind and she’s been nestled against his back for the entire night.

He rolls over onto his side to face her, and she relaxes her arms to let him shift around.

At first, she assumes he’s awake too, but when she peers closer, she can tell he’s still deep within his dreams, his brow no longer creased in anguish and regret.

It’s a deep comfort for her to see his face so relaxed, a reminder of the innocence he’d once completely imbued.

She traces his lips as he slumbers, making plans to kiss him once they return to their own ship.

Their home.

She also plans to do many, many other things with Peter Quill.

 


End file.
